The present invention relates to depositories or magazines for temporary storage of accumulations of paper sheets or the like. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in depositories for large accumulations of sheets or like commodities, particularly for large pallets which carry stacks of folded paper sheets or for large rolls of convoluted folded paper sheets.
It is well known to palletize folded sheets or signatures which are used in bookbinding or newspaper printing plants and to utilize the pallets (each of which has a standard size) for transport of stacked sheets to storage, from storage or directly from the stacking station to a processing station. It is also known to temporarily store large numbers of sheets in the form of rolls each of which is convoluted onto the core of a bobbin or reel and which are put to storage for certain periods of time prior to delivery to a gathering, stuffing, inserting or other processing machine. As a rule, the cores of the reels are mounted in frames which can be transported in the plant to and from storage and/or to other locations in lieu of standard pallets.
A drawback of presently known depositories for pallets and reels which carry large quantities of sheets in the form of stacks or in the form of convolutions is that the vehicles which are used to deliver pallets or reels to and from storage and/or to other destinations are empty at least half of the time. Thus, if the vehicle is used to transport one or more pallets or reels from the stacking or convoluting station to storage, it is empty on its way from storage back to the stacking or convoluting station. Analogously, if the vehicle is used to transport one or more pallets or reels from storage to a gathering or inserting machine, it is empty on its way back to storage or to the stacking or convoluting station. Moreover, the space in a factory building or the like is not utilized to capacity when the pallets or reels are transported in the just described manner. The proposals to increase the number of vehicles do not constitute a satisfactory solution because of the higher initial and maintenance cost as well as the need for additional space in the plant in order to allow for movement of numerous vehicles to and from storage and/or other destinations.